Stories

We like to celebrate those parents who make an enormous difference to their school communities. If you have a story or would like to nominate someone please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A busy mother of three boys, Tamara is a class rep for both Year 1 and Year 2 at Phil and Jim’s primary school while studying for a maths degree at the Open University.

“I’m having a career change and wanted to get involved in my sons’ school lives and to give something back to the school, “ she explains. Tamara, who also has an older son in year 4 at the Dragon School in Oxford, has found Classlist invaluable in helping her to juggle her busy life. She used to work full time as as buyer for high street retailers but is now taking advantage of her change in career direction to put something back into her sons’ schools. Now part way into her three-year degree course, she eventually hopes to teach maths in schools.

Manja Uglow, Chair, Dragon Sale Committee

A busy mother of three children, Manja Uglow is also chair of the Dragon School Christmas Sale Committee – an enormous fundraising event that generates nearly £100,000 every year for children’s charities.

Around 750 children, staff and parents get involved in the event, which has been running for more than 70 years at the well-known north Oxford prep school. Hundreds more attend the event, which also marks the end of the Christmas term – and it comes as no surprise that orchestrating it is a massive commitment of time for Manja and her hardworking team. “It’s about rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in,” says Manja, who estimates she works around two hours a day, year-round, on the event, which last year saw record numbers of children running their own fund-raising stalls. The month before the Sale, she devotes herself full-time to the organisation, which can involve anything from a slew of meetings and emails to driving up to Stoke-on-Trent to collect all the crockery for the plate-smashing stall.

When Roi Cohen Kadosh is not travelling the globe for his research work at Oxford University, or raising his two young children aged six and three, he’s happy to give up his time to work unpaid as a class rep at his oldest child’s school.

As Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford University, Roi travels the world on average twice a month attending conferences and working on projects with fellow scientists. Back in Oxford, he’s a senior fellow at Jesus College – and a busy parent to two youngsters, along with his wife Dr Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, a scientist at Oxford University, specializing in brain development and anxiety in adolescents. Roi, who was born in Israel, moved to the UK nine years ago – originally to London and then to Oxford.

Whoever coined the phrase ‘if you want a job doing well, ask a busy person” might easily have had Maria Blick in mind.

Not only does she have four children but she also runs her own business – and finds time to devote on average a day a week to working unpaid as the chair of the parents’ association of Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford.

A small prep school, with 159 pupils, Christ Church relies on its PA to raise around £6,000 a year for school facilities such as IT equipment, cricket nets and astroturf. But apart from fundraising, the events organized by the PA are just as important in helping to promote the strong and inclusive sense of community that the school enjoys.